Influenza vaccines currently in general use are described in chapters 17 & 18 of reference 1. They are based on live virus or inactivated virus, and inactivated vaccines can be based on whole virus, ‘split’ virus or on purified surface antigens (including haemagglutinin and neuraminidase).
The burden of influenza in healthy young children has been increasingly recognized along with new studies on the medical [2-7] and the socioeconomic [8] impact of influenza. Moreover, children have the highest attack rates of influenza during epidemic periods, and transmit influenza viruses in the community to the high risk groups [8,9].
The American Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in 2006 recommended annual influenza vaccination for all children aged 6-59 months, because children aged 6-23 months are at substantially increased risk for influenza-related hospitalizations [2-7] and children aged 24-59 months are at increased risk for influenza-related clinic and emergency department visits [6]. In July 2008 the ACIP further extended the recommendation for seasonal influenza vaccination in adolescents aged 5 to 18 years [10]. In Europe, some countries have issued similar recommendations, although the European CDC has taken a more restricted position with regard to universal immunization of young children, noting that efficacy in children under 24 months of age has been insufficiently documented and might be as low as 37% [11]. A Cochrane analysis stated that “the field efficacy of influenza vaccine in young children is not different from placebo” [12]
In addition to modest efficacy, conventional vaccines do not appear to induce satisfactory protective antibodies in unprimed children, especially the very young ones. More specifically, conventional vaccines generally show lower immunogenicity against the influenza B strain than against influenza A strains [13,14]. ACIP has since 2004 recommended a two-dose vaccination regimen in immunologically naïve very young children, but more recently such recommendation has been extended to children aged up to 8 years of age, because of the accumulating evidence indicating that 2 doses are required for protection in this population [15].
An additional problem in immunizing children against influenza comes from ‘antigenic drift’. Influenza viruses routinely undergo intense selection to evade the host immune system, resulting in genetic variation and the generation of novel strains (‘antigenic drift’). It has been suggested that antigenic drift is associated with a more severe and early onset of influenza epidemic, since the level of pre-existing immunity to the drifted strain is reduced to the drifted strain [16]. While all three virus strains currently included in seasonal influenza vaccines are subject to antigenic drift, the A/H3N2 strain is known to drift more frequently and new variants tend to replace old ones [17,18].
The pace of antigenic drift can exceed the pace of vaccine manufacture. When a vaccine is released, therefore, the vaccine strains may no longer be a good match for the circulating strains. A vaccine mismatch can result in a significant excess of influenza-related mortality, since vaccine effectiveness is reduced [19]. Vaccine mismatch is a potentially larger problem in the most influenza susceptible populations, particularly in young children who do not have pre-existing immunity against any influenza viruses. This was shown more recently in the 2003/2004 season by the emergence of a drifted mismatch strain (A/Fujian, H3N2), which was not included in the vaccine, and resulted in 3 times as many children being hospitalized in intensive care in California, compared with the previous season [20]. In contrast to young children, the elderly at least have a significant history of prior exposure to circulating influenza strains, which offers them some degree of cross protection. Drifted influenza strains which emerge after vaccine recommendations are finalized, as occurred in 1997 and 2003, are a significant threat to vaccine-naïve young children.
It is an object of the invention to provide influenza vaccines that are effective in children, that adequate influenza B virus immunogenicity (to induce an adequate immune response), that give useful protection against common circulating influenza viruses even after a single dose, and/or that are effective in children against drifted influenza A virus strains, particularly A/H3N2 strains.